Word Save as PDF

Saving a Word Document in PDF format allows people to view the document regardless of what word processor they are using. More importantly, it prevents formatting errors from cropping up due to word-processor incompatibilities, making PDFs a must for official documents like resumes and important letters. To convert a Microsoft Word document to PDF format, use one of the following methods.

Save to PDF from Microsoft Word 2010 and Above

A key new feature in Microsoft Office 2010 is the ability to easily save documents as PDF or XPS files. It’s nice to see the functionality built-in to Office 2010 right out of the box with full PDF integration for pretty much the entire Office 2010 Suite including Word, Excel and Powerpoint. There are multiple options for creating a PDF file. You can use the built-in “Save As” function and select the .PDF format or use the new Share menu and select the option to create a PDF or XPS document. Here’s a brief look and screenshot tour at how easy it is to create a PDF using Office 2010.

  1. Click File, Share. From the Share menu, Click Create PDF/XPS Document then on the right-side Click Create a PDF/XPS.

  2. In the prompt, Choose a location and name. Next Click Publish.

Done! Your document is now saved as a PDF. It sure is nice to cut out the “middle-man” PDF conversion software! Now it’s just one clean easy-to-use structure. After you save a file as a PDF, you cannot use Word 2010 to make changes to the PDF file. Instead you should save two versions of the file: one in Word 2007 format and one in the PDF format. Changes should be made to the Word 2010 version of the file and then that file can be resaved as a PDF.

Save to PDF from Microsoft Word 2007

There is nice Add-In for Microsoft Office 2007 which allows you to save or email documents in PDF format. Just download and install the Microsoft Save As PDF Add-In. Installation is very simple, only takes about a minute and you are ready to use a feature long ignored by Microsoft. There are actually 2 different Add-Ins, one allows only PDF and the other allows both PDF and XPS format.

Unrar and launch the SaveAsPDFandXPS.exe file and click Run when the security warning appears.

Accept the license and terms and click Continue.

The application installs … When installation complete click OK. Now when you open say Word 2007 you will notice the ability to use the new feature:

  1. Click the Microsoft Office Button Office button image, point to the arrow next to Save As, and then click PDF or XPS.
  2. In the File Name list, type or select a name for the document.
  3. In the Save as type list, click PDF.
  4. If you want to open the file immediately after saving it, select the Open file after publishing check box. This check box is available only if you have a PDF reader installed on your computer.

  5. Next to Optimize for, do one of the following, depending on whether file size or print quality is more important:

    • If the document requires high print quality, click Standard (publishing online and printing).
    • If the print quality is less important than file size, click Minimum size (publishing online).
  6. Click Options to set the page range to be printed, to choose whether markup should be printed, and to select the output options. Click OK.
  7. Click Publish.

If you want to make changes to the PDF after saving it, return to your original 2007 Microsoft Office system file in which you created it and save the file as PDF again. To learn more, see Learn about PDF and XPS file formats.

According to the Microsoft site this Add-In can be used in 8 of the Office applications. So far I have successfully tested it in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.